Taste Test: Dunkin' Donuts' Pancake Sausage Bites

Or: Morning Corndogs.

[Photographs: Robyn Lee]

America is a land of "on-the-go" food: the drive-thru window, the assembly line burger. Everything that we thought was immobile has become mobile—phone service, Internet access. With its Pancake Sausage bites, Dunkin' Donuts has taken the old-fashioned sausage and pancake breakfast, and—say it with me—made it mobile!

I couldn't help but notice when Dunkin' rolled out this new product. It seemed so absurd, a little gross, even: a pancake-like munchkin with a sausage inside? But when the average consumer makes a Mr. Yuck face, yours truly has to step in to stomach the unstomachable. If it's new, I'm gonna try it.

The Pancake Sausage Bites are simply little balls that look like "munchkins," Dunkin's doughnut holes. Outside, they have a corn-based "pancake" batter; inside, the ball of sausage. They come in a 3-pack or a 6-pack, and seem to be sticking around for awhile: they're now the #8 on Dunkin's menu. Be careful, though—at 100 calories per bite, the six-pack is no light breakfast. (As a basis for comparison, sugar-coated Munchkins have 60 calories per, and jelly-filled have 80 apiece).

With low expectations from my last visit to Dunkin's breakfast, I was very surprised by how much I liked the flavors that came out of the first "Bite." The pancake coating was more like a breading, and simultaneously tasted like pancakes and cornbread; the more I chomped, the more it started to remind me of a corndog, though almost sweet and greasy enough to be a funnel cake. The sausage inside was like any reasonably juicy breakfast sausage: sweet and meaty-tasting, with a little pepper and spice.

By the third and final "Bite," I realized that I actually liked the things. There are elements of corndogs, pancakes, and breakfast sausage. No particular flavor dominates, and it ends up as a weird but tasty balance—mini morning corndogs for Jimmy Dean fans. I intended only to eat one; however, I scarfed down three and strongly considered getting three more "just to be sure."

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About the Author

I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA, and graduated from Princeton with a degree in French and Italian Literature. I also played on the Men's Squash Team. Outside of SE, I enjoy foreign languages, talking about Dante's Divine Comedy, and watching Castle. I'm currently the head intern at Stellar, a website that aggregates favorites across other web services. You can learn more at www.stellar.io, or tweet at me for invites.

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